Pennzoil history at the Indianapolis ‘500’

Author photo

The Shell Oil Company’s outdoor display at the 2018 SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) show in Las Vegas featured the #3 Pennzoil-sponsored Dallara IR-12 with the UAK (Universal Aero Kit) IndyCar as driven by Helio Castroneves in the 2018 Indianapolis 500-mile race.

Pennzoil, a division of Shell Oil since 2002, has a long history of involvement at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IndyCar racing. The company claims to have sponsored the machines of Russell Snowberger and Wilbur Shaw during the nineteen thirties, but the earliest Pennzoil sponsorship the author is aware of at the Indianapolis ‘500’ dates back to 1951, when Pennzoil sponsored the Emil Deidt built front-wheel drive car owned by Howard Keck.

This well-funded effort owned by the Southern California oilman was considered a “super team” at the time as it combined a proven winning car design, a superstar driver, three-time Indianapolis ‘500’ race winner Mauri Rose, and superstar mechanics, the “Whiz Kids” Frank Coon and Jim Travers. The Deidt-built front-drive machine was a later version of the design which Rose had driven earlier for car owner Lou Moore. Moore’s twin Blue Crown Spark Plug front-drive machines dominated the 500-mile race between 1947 and 1950, with three victories and two sweeps of both first and second place.

After Rose’s Blue Crown Special broke a magneto strap and dropped out of the 1949 race with just eight laps to go, he angrily quit Moore’s team and was entered for the 1950 ‘500’ as the driver of Keck’s shiny black unsponsored machine replacing the 1948 and 1949 pilot Jimmy Jackson. Rose started the 1950 ‘500’ on the outside of the front row for the start, led the first nine laps, then led again on two occasions but ultimately finished in third place behind winner Johnnie Parsons and Bill Holland in a Blue Crown Spark Plug Special.

Mauri Rose poses with a can of Pennzoil in 1951

Photo courtesy of the IUPUI University Library

Center for Digital Studies

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection

In 1951, Rose who was 45 years on race day with over 5,000 miles of competition at the Speedway to his credit, was entered as the driver of the same sleek black machine but with addition of Pennzoil as the sponsor. Rose was the first driver out for 1951-time trials and wound up fifth fastest to start his fifteenth ‘500,’ but during the 1951 Memorial Day Classic, the car’s right rear wire wheel collapsed on his 126^th lap as Rose entered the fourth turn and the #16 Pennzoil Special slid into the infield, rolled over and came to rest in a drainage ditch.

Pennzoil returned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1979 as the sponsor of the Jim Hall-owned Chaparral 2K designed by John Barnard which made use of the new “ground effects” technology that used the underside of the car to create downforce to hold the machine onto the racing surface.  In 1979 driver Al Unser, the defending champion battled his brother Bobby for the race lead during the first half of the race before the car retired with a broken transmission seal on lap 104.

Johnny Rutherford and his crew pose after qualifying for the 1980 Indy 500

JR's wife Betty (the team's scorer) on the sidepod and car owner Jim Hall in cowboy hat

Photo courtesy of the IUPUI University Library

Center for Digital Studies

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection

The updated Pennzoil Chaparral 2K-02 retuned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1980 with a new driver, two-time Indianapolis champion Johnny Rutherford. Rutherford and the machine dubbed the “Yellow Submarine” won the pole position and dominated the race, as Johnny led seven times for a total of 118 laps, which included the final 21 laps. Rutherford would score four other victories during the controversial 1980 co-sanctioned season and was crowned the 1980 CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) series champion. Rutherford continued to drive the Pennzoil Chaparral in 1981, but in 1982 the Hall team turned to a March 82C chassis.

Rick Mears enroute to victory in the 1988 Indianapolis 500 mile race

Photo courtesy of the IUPUI University Library

Center for Digital Studies

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection

Chaparral car owner Jim Hall at the end of the 1982 CART season so for 1983, the Pennzoil sponsorship moved to Penske Racing. Pennzoil was the primary sponsor of the car of Rick Mears the 1979 Indianapolis 500-mile race winner, a pairing which lasted through the 1990 season. The combination resulted in seven CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) wins and two Indianapolis ‘500’ victories in 1984 and 1988.  In 1984, Rick started third, led a race-high 119 laps, which included the final 56 circuits. In 1988, Mears started from the pole position, after he set new one and four lap records and led the final 77 laps to capture his third ‘500’ title.

Teo Fabi 1993 Indianapolis 500 qualifying photo

Author's personal collection

In late 1990, Jim Hall returned to racing from retirement and Pennzoil moved its sponsorship to the new partnership known as Hall/VDS Racing.  From 1991 to 1993, the Pennzoil machine was driven by John Andretti who won his debut race for Hall/VDS. In 1993 Andretti was replaced by Teo Fabi at Hall/VDS Racing, and beginning with the 1994 season the team was known as Hall Racing as team partner brewery heir Count Rudy Van Der Straten, the VDS part of the team had died in late 1992.  Teo Fabi remained as the team’s driver through the 1994 season but in two seasons, Teo was unable to find the winner’s circle.  In 1995 and 1996, Brazilian Gil DeFerran carried the Pennzoil colors in CART for Jim Hall Racing and scored one race win each season.

With the cataclysmic 1996 split of American open-wheel racing, Pennzoil joined forces with Pagan Racing for partial sponsorship at the Indianapolis 500-mile race. After Jim Hall retired again at the end of the 1996 season, Pennzoil came on board for the full 1997 Indy Racing League (IRL) season with the team owned by Texas oilman Jack Pagan and his son Allan.   

At the end of the 1997 season, Pagan Racing crew chief John Barnes left to form his own team, with five partners, football player Jim Harbuagh, television producer Terry Lingner, Indianapolis car dealer Gary Pedigo, radio personality Mike Griffin, and Indianapolis politician Doug Boles.

The Pennzoil sponsorship followed Barnes to the new team known as Panther Racing, although the entries driven by Scott Goodyear in the 1998, 1999, and 2000 IRL seasons used a non-traditional yellow and black livery.  When Goodyear’s planned teammate for the 1999 Indianapolis ‘500,’ sprint car driver David Steele, was unable to compete due to lingering injuries, Pennzoil provided partial sponsorship to the already-qualified car driven by Tyce Carlson.

Sam Hornish Jr. at Indianapolis 2003

Author's personal collection

Although Goodyear respectively scored three victories in his three seasons with Panther/Pennzoil before he retired, it was his replacement, Sam Hornish Jr. that brought the Panther/Pennzoil team its greatest successes. Hornish won in his debut race with the team at Phoenix International Raceway in 2001, and notched a total of eleven IRL races wins and two IRL driver championship titles in his three seasons in the Pennzoil colors from 2001 to 2003. 

When Hornish moved to Penske Racing for the 2004 season, his seat in the Pennzoil Panther was taken over by 24-year old South African Tomas Scheckter. Over his two seasons with Panther/Pennzoil, Tomas, the son of 1979 Formula One world champion Jody Scheckter was often fast in qualifying but only scored one race win at Texas Motor Speedway where he out-dueled Hornish for the win by .0534 seconds.

Pennzoil remained on the sidelines of IndyCar race team sponsorship from 2006 to 2011, but returned in 2012 with Penske Racing and three-time Indianapolis ‘500’ champion Helio Castroneves as part of the Penske line-up of rotating sponsors. Castroneves carried the Pennzoil colors at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the ‘500’ in 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018.    

Author photo

The #3 Dallara IR-12 seen at the 2018 SEMA show is powered by a DOHC Chevrolet Ilmor twin-turbocharged V-6 engine that displaces just 134 cubic inches, but produces up to 700 horsepower at the highest boost level for qualifying for the Indianapolis 500-mile race with Pennzoil Ultra Platinum motor oil in its dry sump oil tank.

  

The car that won the

longest Indianapolis ‘500’

Roger Penske

The 1981 ‘Norton Spirit’ Penske PC9B owned by the Malloy Foundation was part of the tribute to Penske Racing’s 50th anniversary at the Performance Racing Industry (PRI) show in the Indiana Convention Center. This was the car Bobby Unser used in 1981 to notch his (and car owner Roger Penske’s) third Indianapolis 500-mile race in what proved to be the longest 500-mile race ever contested. Thirty-five years later it remains the most controversial Indianapolis 500-mile race.

Even before the 1981 ‘500’ there was controversy, as the sport of championship auto racing was entering the third turbulent year of the sanctioning war between Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) and the United States Auto Club (USAC).  The initial skirmish had been resolved in CART’s favor by a temporary injunction issued by United States District Judge James Noland on the first day of practice for the1979 Indianapolis ‘500.’ 

The war intensified as CART and USAC each issued their 1980 season schedules. CART planned 13 races that included many events at former USAC tracks, while the 10-race USAC schedule contained some surprises with new 500-kilometer races scheduled at Talladega International Speedway, Road Atlanta, and Charlotte Motor Speedway.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway tried to bolster USAC’s position by providing “automatic invitations” for the ‘500’ to teams which had been loyal to USAC during 1979,  but eventually concern over a lack of entries led to the Speedway also inviting the CART teams. In the early months of 1980 Leo Mehl of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company struggled to get the two feuding groups to compromise, and finally Goodyear’s threat to charge teams for race tires brought about an agreement.

On April 13 1980, the two groups jointly announced the formation of the ‘Championship Racing League’ (CRL) to be governed by a six-member board (five of which were car owners) to present a combined 1980 schedule to consist of “about 15 races.” The races would be run with USAC as the officiating body and use 1979 USAC rules with the proposed races at Talladega Atlanta and Charlotte dropped.  

Alas, the truce did not hold. After the running of the 1980 “500,’ new Indianapolis Motor Speedway President John Cooper publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with USAC’s “lack of independence” due to the stacking of car owners on the CRL board. After Cooper requested proposals to sanction the 1981 Indianapolis ‘500’ from NASCAR, IMSA (International Motorsports Association), the SCCA, and even the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), USAC panicked.

After the fifth race of the 1980 CRL season the ‘Red Roof Inns 150’, USAC President Dick King issued a statement in mid-July, that USAC was withdrawing from the Championship Racing League and that the organization was dissolved. CART continued the 1980 season under their own sanction and ran seven more races, while the USAC 1980 schedule abruptly ended after five races.  

For 1981, the USAC championship racing division really sanctioned only two IndyCar tracks – the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Pocono International Raceway and the remainder of the new USAC ‘Gold Crown’ schedule consisted of three one-mile dirt tracks. The 1981 CART 11-race schedule did not include the Indianapolis 500-mile race but it did not have any races scheduled during the month before the ‘500’ or against it.

Penske Racing contested the 1981 championship racing season with three drivers; Bobby Unser, Rick Mears, and new addition Bill Alsup, a 42-year Formula Vee and Super Vee veteran. Unser and Mears drove the Geoff Ferris-designed Penske PC-9B an updated full ground effects car fitted with 750 horsepower turbocharged Cosworth 4-valves per cylinder 4-camshaft DFX engine, while Alsup piloted a year-old PC-9.

The 106-inch wheelbase aluminum monocoque PC-9 rode on special 4-spoke Penske magnesium wheels fitted with Goodyear tires. In 1980, Ferris won the annual Louis Schwitzer Award from the Indiana chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers SAE for his innovation and engineering excellence in the design of the PC-9 chassis.   

On the second day of May practice at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Unser ran the fastest lap of the month so far at 197 miles per hour (MPH). Unser and Mears then upped their pace to over 200 MPH on Friday afternoon before the first scheduled weekend of time trials. Due to rain the first weekend both Penske drivers were forced to wait until May 15 to make their time trial runs.

Unser averaged 200.546 MPH for his four-lap qualifying run, then the defending pole winner Rick Mears took to the track and posted a first lap of 200.9 MPH. Mears’ PC-9B ‘Gould Charge’ developed a vibration during the second lap so Mears wisely aborted that attempt and Unser held onto his second career ‘500’ pole position start. 

Bobby Unser and the #3 ‘Norton Spirit’ dominated the running of the 1981 ‘500,’ as he led the first 21 laps and eventually the most laps, 89, as he led on eight different occasions. Teammate Rick Mears led once on lap 57 before he pitted, then a pit fire eliminated the ‘Gould Charge’ and sent Mears and four of his crewmembers to the hospital with burns.

On Lap 149, under caution due to a crash by sophomore driver Gordon Smiley, race leader Mario Andretti and second place runner Bobby Unser both made a pit stop. The pair swapped positions as they emerged from the pits. As Andretti prepared to slot his #40 STP Oil Treatment-sponsored WIldcat into the middle of the pack in the short chute between Turns 1 and 2, he watched as Unser passed eight cars before blending into traffic. ”Bobby’s going right to the front!” Andretti told his Patrick Racing crew chief, Jim McGee via radio.

Unser led 47 of the remaining 50 laps and Andretti crossed the finish line 5 seconds behind Bobby who had backed off to save his car in the later laps.  When the race was over, Andretti’s team owner U.E. “Pat” Patrick told Chief Steward Tom Binford that he wanted to file a protest, but Binford replied that a protest could not be lodged until the official results were posted at 8 AM the following day.

Back in 1981, the ABC television broadcast of the ‘500’ was tape-delayed, with commentary added during post-production rather than recorded live which has led to much confusion and false claims of bias against Unser years later as fans watch the replay.  ABC producers knew there was a potential controversy so they included footage of Unser passing cars under caution on the broadcast and commentator Jackie Stewart uttered “oh, that’s a no-no.” ABC television pit reporter and veteran racing journalist Chris Economaki asked Binford to comment on Unser’s documented violation and Binford stated on the broadcast that “right now and later on this evening, we will be reviewing all the facts.”

Overnight a committee of five USAC stewards reviewed the videotapes and voted, 3-2, to penalize Unser one lap for the “blend rule” violation which made Andretti the winner, while the same group voted, 3-2, not to penalize Andretti for the same offense as it appeared that some lapped drivers may have legally waved Andretti past.  

The official results were posted at 8 AM on May 25 with Andretti listed as the race winner. Unser was furious.  "We weren't cheating," Sports Illustrated quoted Unser, "We had the fastest car, no matter what the decision." Unser understandably boycotted the victory banquet where Andretti was given the keys to the silver Buick Regal V6-powered Pace Car and the winner’s ring.   

Roger Penske, represented by flamboyant Philadelphia attorney Jimmy Binns, filed his formal notice of appeal of the finish of the 1981’500’ with USAC on May 28. Penske and Unser's primary argument concerned the vague definition of the "blend rule" in the USAC rulebook and USAC’s lax enforcement.  USAC appointed a three-man appeals board that included former USAC presidents Charlie Brockman and Reynold MacDonald with University of Louisville law professor Edwin Render as the chairman.  

The hearing was held on June 12, but it dissolved into complex legal arguments and personal bickering between Binns and USAC General Counsel Henry Ryder, and mid-way through the hearing, the meeting was adjourned. Due to upcoming races the hearing was scheduled to resume on July 29. Instead of being concluded in an afternoon, the USAC appeal hearing eventually took five days over a two month period, with various drivers, team members, and race officials offering interesting testimony. 

Under questioning from Ryder, three time ‘500’ winner Johnny Rutherford said he “probably” passed cars under the yellow on his way to victory in 1980 while fellow three-time ‘500’ winner Al Unser stated that the pits did not end until turn two. USAC official Art Meyers could not recall whether he had asked observers, as Binford had requested, for a report on “blend rule” violations during the race. Bobby Unser had missed the pre-race driver’s meeting and testified on his recollections of a private meeting with Art Meyers in which he claimed Meyers told him “go to the yellow line in turn two and blend in where you can.” 

On October 9, 1981, the three-member USAC appeals board voted 2-1 (with Render casting the deciding ballot) to reinstate Unser as the 1981 Indianapolis 500-mile race winner, but fined $40,000 for the “blend rule” violation. The ruling written by Render stated that while Unser gained a competitive advantage by passing cars during the caution flag period, the penalty assessed was inappropriate. 

The controversy was not over, as the following day October 10 1981 Mario Andretti with his Indianapolis attorney Forrest Bowman announced their intention to file a protest to the USAC appeals board decision. Mario claimed he had not been given sufficient notice to attend or prepare for the hearings, so by article 22 of the USAC bylaws the unlawful appeals board decision should be set aside.   

On November 18 USAC president Dick King denied Andretti's appeal as he said that adequate notice had been given when a telegram was sent and a telephone call placed to Patrick Racing.  Pat Patrick and Andretti then took their appeal to the Automobile Competition Committee of the United States (ACCUS) Court of Appeals. On February 2, 1982 ACCUS officially informed Patrick and Andretti that the group declined to hear the appeal because the pair had failed to exhaust all their appeals with the USAC Board of Directors.

On March 4, 1982 Mario Andretti and Pat Patrick announced that they had reached the end of the appeals process and were dropping the matter, although they stated "we have decided to let stand this decision we believe to be unacceptable to the majority of racing fans who love the sport and respect the rules."  35 years later, Andretti told the Allentown Pennsylvania Morning Call "I have the ring, but he cheated and was given the race. It was one race that Roger Penske did not win."

The longest Indianapolis ‘500’ on record ended on March 12, 1982, when the Indianapolis Motor Speedway released the prize money which had been held in escrow, 292 days after the start of the 1981 Indianapolis ‘500.’ Unser’s win marked the third consecutive Indianapolis 500-mile race victory from the pole starting position, and at the time Bobby was the oldest ‘500’ winner at 47 years, 93 days but he was later edged out by his younger brother Al who was 47 years, 360 days old when he won in 1987.

It is an often repeated inaccuracy that an embittered Bobby Unser retired at the end of the 1981 season. While it is true that in 1982 Bobby took on the role of team manager and driver coach for the 1981 Indianapolis Rookie of the Year Josele Garza and his ‘Schlitz Gusto’ team., Unser was entered and took some test laps during May 1982. 

Bobby might have entertained ideas of racing in the 1982 ‘500’ in the team’s second car but those hopes were dashed when Garza crashed on May 13 and totaled the team’s primary car.  After the 1982 season, Pat Patrick offered Unser a ride for the 1983 season but Bobby formally announced his retirement on December 20 1982.

No matter who you think was the winner of the 1981 Indianapolis ‘500,’ collector and vintage racer Tom Malloy is covered. Not only does Malloy own Unser’s Penske PC9B shown at PRI, he also owns the Wildcat chassis that Mario Andretti drove in the 1981 Indianapolis ‘500’ as well as the ‘Red Roof Inns’ McLaren M24/Cosworth that Vern Schuppan used to capture a third place finish for good measure.    

photos by the author

1979 Penske PC-6 Indianapolis winner

 

The 2016 edition of the Performance Racing Industry trade show held at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis featured a special display devoted to the 50th anniversary of Penske Racing, with special focus on four of the sixteen Team Penske Indianapolis ‘500’ race winners.  

 

Click to enlarge and notice the discrete CART sticker on the engine cover

 

The earliest Roger Penske-owned Indianapolis 500 winner on display was the Penske PC-6 driven by Rick Mears to victory in 1979 an event which was dogged with controversy in the weeks leading up to running of the race itself.

In November 1978, the United States Auto Club (USAC) 21-man board of directors which governed the ‘500,’ rejected a series of demands from a group of dissatisfied championship series car owners led by Dan Gurney. Days later, that core group of disgruntled car owners which included Gurney, Bob Fletcher, U.E. ‘Pat’ Patrick, Roger Penske, Team McLaren and Jim Hall formed Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART).

CART soon allied with the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) and announced plans to sanction a 13-race championship racing series in direct competition with USAC which saw its 1979 schedule shrink to seven races. In mid-April 1979, 19 entries for the International 500-mile Sweepstakes submitted by CART car owners were refused by USAC “because you are not in good standing with USAC" with the $1,000 entry fee for each car returned. On April 26 1979 CART filed suit against USAC in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana and cited violations of antitrust and right to work laws.

Roger Penske had entered only two drivers for the 1979 Indianapolis 500-mile race; veteran Bobby Unser who won the 1968 and 1975 Indianapolis 500-mile races and 27-year old Rick Mears from Bakersfield California. Penske hired Mears in 1978 to run a limited USAC championship schedule in place of Mario Andretti who was focused on winning the world Formula 1 driver’s championship. 

In his second attempt at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Mears qualified the red and white #71 Penske PC-6 “CAM2 Motor Oil Special” in third position for the start of the race.  Although Mears fell out with engine failure on lap 103 and finished 23rd, he was named the co-winner of the 1978, Stark Wetzel Rookie of the Year award with Larry Rice who had finished eleventh.  Mears scored three race wins in his remaining nine 1978 USAC races and finished ninth in USAC points despite missing seven races.    

After a three-day hearing, on May 5, the official first day of practice at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Judge James Noland agreed with CART that USAC and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway had conspired to keep the six racing teams out of the 500-mile race and granted the temporary injunction due to the “severe hardship the drivers would suffer far outweighs the harm to the defendants by allowing them to race.”

On May 7, his first day of practice after having his entry reinstated Rick Mears turned the fastest of the day at 187.578 miles per hour (MPH). His teammate Bobby Unser elected to race with the new Penske PC-7 chassis which had limited aerodynamic ‘ground effects’ while Mears stuck with a proven year-old PC-6 chassis which had been driven to the USAC/Citicorp Cup championship in 1978 by Tom Sneva.

The following day May 8 Mears ran the Speedway’s fastest unofficial lap to date for the year at 193.5 MPH. After the first day of qualifying was rained out, on Sunday May 13, Mears as the last pole position eligible driver recorded a four-lap average of 193.736 MPH to take the pole position, his first of his record six career Indianapolis  pole position starts.   

The Penske PC-6 is widely publicized as “the first Penske IndyCar” which is incorrect. During 1973, as part of his push to race in Formula 1, Roger Penske bought the McRae Cars Limited 5000 square foot race car fabrication shop in Poole England from John Heynes. The first Penske built race car, dubbed the PC-1 was designed by Geoff Ferris for Formula 1 competition in 1974, and was followed by the Formula 1 PC-3 in 1975 and the PC-4 used during the 1976 Grand Prix season.

Meanwhile the Penske USAC championship teams used McLaren customer cars until the latter part of the 1977 USAC season, and the debut of the Penske PC-5 an improvement on the design of the McLaren M24 chassis. Tom Sneva drove four 1977 USAC races in a Penske PC-5 entry on his way to the USAC championship while Mario Andretti drove a Penske PC-5 chassis once at the Michigan Grand Prix, the first race where two Penske Cars Limited chassis appeared. 

 

 

The Penske PC-6 also designed by Geoff Ferris which used a fiberglass body over an aluminum monocoque tub, debuted at the start of the 1978 USAC season and won the season championship for Tom Sneva. The PC-6 recorded just one race win in 1978 as the #7 “Gould Charge” driven by Mario Andretti which won the Machinist Union 150  in Trenton New Jersey The 1978 PC-6 was later immortalized in 1/25 scale as AMT sold three versions (Unser, Mears and Andretti) as styrene model kits.   

 

 

The Penske PC-6 was powered by the Cosworth DFX the 161-cubic inch turbocharged version of the Cosworth DFV Formula 1 engine. The Vel’s Parnelli Jones/ American Racing Wheels team exclusively used the DFX engine during the 1976 USAC season and won two races.  For 1977 onward multiple teams had access to the DFX power plant and the engine won the first of its string of ten consecutive Indianapolis ‘500’ race victories in 1978.

Despite qualifying for the pole position, Mears in the #9 Penske PC-6 “Gould Charge” was far from dominant on May 28 1979 as the race was dominated by the Unser brothers Al and Bobby who between them led 174 of the 200 laps. Bobby Unser in the #12 Penske PC-7 “Norton Spirit” appeared destined for victory until his car’s Hewland transmission lost high gear on lap 181. Rick Mears led the final nineteen laps to score his first ‘500’ victory as the first winner in the history of the world’s greatest race to be born after World War Two.   

 

Rick Mears won the inaugural 1979 PPG Cup emblematic of the CART championship 

Penske drivers won it five more times before the ward was retired in 1999

 

Mears drove the PC-6 chassis in the “Trenton Twin Indy” races on June 10, then switched to the PC-7 chassis for the balance of the 1979 CART season and scored wins in the “Ditzler 150” at Trenton New Jersey and the “Rich’s (department stores) Indy Atlanta Classic” at Atlanta Motor Speedway on his way to capturing the first PPG Cup for Team Penske.

The restored PC-6, Penske’s second Indianapolis 500-mile race winner displayed at PRI 2016 is part of the Penske Racing Collection and is typically displayed in the Penske Racing Museum located in Scottsdale Arizona.

Photos by the author